


And Share Alike

by madzmickleson



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-21
Updated: 2016-10-21
Packaged: 2018-08-23 17:07:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8335597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madzmickleson/pseuds/madzmickleson
Summary: Mary always liked sharing. One-shot.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A/N:  
> This one-shot character study was written during the middle of S3E1. Like, I seriously paused the video, wrote the story, and switched back to the episode. After finishing Season 3, I now feel like it doesn’t quite fit anymore, but I’m posting it anyway, with the idea that I might do another version, expanded to fit this new side of Mary we’ve been given.
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing, so please don’t sue.

Mary never minded sharing.

When all the other little boys and girls were reluctantly giving up their toys in the name of friendship, squinting and wincing at the loss of their precious things, Mary was smiling and laughing, watching her friends play with hers. She liked it, really, watching the enjoyment others got. Her favourite dolly, the one from America? She let Marci play with it, and while Mary was entranced with the hair, with Marci it was the way the legs moved, and the changeable eye colours, flipped with a switch at the back. Jimmy was just the same—she lent him all her best books, and while he preferred the overarching themes of _Robinson Crusoe_  and  _Lord of the Flies_ , she got the most fun out the characters.

That was what sharing was all about, or at least Mary thought, anyway. You got to let all those things that you didn’t really bother with be appreciated. You got to see what other people liked, and what’s more, you got to know that you were in some way responsible for their enjoyment. The facilitator of their happiness. The arbiter of their pleasure.

And she liked it when other people had fun. 

That’s why Mary never minded Sherlock. She liked the fact that he and John were such good friends, just as she liked it that Sherlock had apparently never worked out just how important it was to her. He saw so much, but he never really understood. Never could have understood how much she got out of their friendship, or even why.

Never could have understood that, for her, sharing John was as necessary as air, or sex, or Sunday breakfasts.

John never really knew that, either. She had almost slipped up. Relationships were lovely, but monogamy never managed to work out for her. She enjoyed sharing far too much. Whenever she had suggested it to her suitors, one by one they would all break it off. There were many people who enjoyed that sort of thing, but somehow Mary never managed to find any of them.

It was brilliant, really. Mary got John’s mind and his body, while Sherlock got his heart.

His heart, you ask? Isn’t that the one thing she would have wanted to keep?

The thing was, Mary was never comfortable with having everything. Mind, body _and_ soul—it was just too much, really, for one person to handle. Or maybe it was just too much for Mary to handle. She couldn’t bear to hold it all, which is why she was so pleased when Sherlock showed up and took some of John off her hands.

Now he had another person to hold him, and love him, and keep him safe. And neither Sherlock nor John were any the wiser.

And that was the just way she liked it.


End file.
